Ex- Formula 1 driver, who raced at Le Mans from 2012-15 with the JRM and Murphy teams, makes his return to the hallowed Circuit de La Sarthe after a one-year absence. There aren’t many who won’t immediately jump at the opportunity to partake in one of the world's premier motorsports event, and Karun definitely isn’t one of them.

Karun has gotten a seat in the Tockwith Motorsports LMP2 Ligier-Gibson P217 car for the 24 Hours race, which will be held on June 17-18. This year, the Tockwith Motorsports team will be making its debut in a class whose grid at Le Mans is arguably the most competitive it’s ever been. With 25 cars on the grid, Karun will be racing alongside several drivers that he’s competed against over the years including Bruno Senna, Nico Prost, Nelson Piquet jnr, and Jean Eric Vergne.

Chandhok, who competed at last month’s FIA WEC 6 Hours of Spa to get more comfortable with the car, will be joined by young debutant Philip Hanson and Nigel Moore at the French circuit.

The Indian racer commented, “Le Mans is magical, it is the best race in the world in many ways. The challenge of it, is that it’s so difficult. You’re driving in the day, in the night, the track conditions are changing, the temperatures are changing, you’ve got rain inevitably at some stage, you have four different tyre compounds to choose from, you have to deal with the traffic, it’s such a long lap as well, very, very tricky to get right, and we’re doing over 320kph at four different points on the track.”

“Realistically, I’m with a rookie team and with a rookie team-mate who’s 17 years old so it’s going to be a challenge to get a strong result. We’re in a Ligier chasses and judging by the official test session, we don’t seem to have the pace of the Oreca chassis who looked very strong. It’s a 24 hour race and lots can happen so we’ll just keep our heads down and work away but I think if we get in the top 6 we would have done very well considering all this.” added Chandhok.